I rarely brew "to style". I much prefer to brew "to taste"...my taste. That's the beauty of brewing beer: I get to brew what I want to drink.
That being said, I have entered several competitions (and stewarded one), one of which was the National Homebrew comp in '18. I took great care to brew to style and I'm extremely confident that both my entries were to style. One was a really exceptional example where the feedback was that it was too hoppy and wasn't the easy drinking, approachable beer expected for the style. It was very clear that they weren't judging my beer...it was in no way, shape or form hoppy and several co-workers who drink macros really enjoyed it. Clearly the very definition of easy drinking and approachable. It was also a competition-proven recipe.
The other had prominent diacetyl, yet scored a 34 with no mention of the flaw.
I can only assume there was a mixup of bottles as the tasting notes did not even come close to fitting either beer (across a number of judges)
The bottom line for me is that I'd only enter a comp where I hand deliver my beers and where the flight sizes are reasonable. Even then, I'm generally not that interested in brewing to style so I won't do much.
We do have 4 BJCP judges in our homebrew club that I trust. I get great feedback from them regardless of whether my beer is "to style" so that's good enough for me. I also have a cadre of serious beer nerd friends who literally travel around the country to visit breweries, attend releases and festivals or just to get beer we can't get here. We get together to share great beer on a regular basis. I get great feedback from them. They don't give me the brewer's perspective you get from a judge, but they've all had many of the best beers in the world and have very experienced palates. They know good beer I trust them with the subjective "wow, that's amazing" or "It tastes grassy" type feedback.
I've thought about becoming a judge, but after stewarding the National event at the KC location...no way. Those judges looked like they were hating beer by the end. More than once I had a judge ask how many more, let out a deep sigh and "really?" when I replied. They were burned out. They did appear to take the role seriously and I saw some intense discussions at the mini-bos level. Also, there are styles I really would not want to score.